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Friday, June 22, 2018

The Anthony Taglianetti Love Triangle Murder Case

In 2010, Anthony Taglianetti and his wife Mary resided with their four children in Woodbridge, Virginia. Anthony, a former Marine, worked at the Marine Museum. Later that year, the couple separated. Mary and the children moved out of the house in Virginia and relocated in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Shortly after taking up residence in Saratoga Springs, Mary signed up with the online dating site Match.com where she met Keith Reed Jr. She did not tell the 51-year-old superintendent of the Clymer, New York school district that she was married. After Mr. Reed and the 40-year-old woman exchanged a few emails, they met for dinner. After that they became romantically involved. Keith Reed still did not know that he was dating a married woman.

Keith Reed, the father of three college age daughters, lived alone in the farming community of 1,500 70 miles southwest of Buffalo, New York. The school superintendent had been divorced for several years.

In 2011, Mary Taglianetti, after reconciling with her husband, moved back to Woodbridge, Virginia. But in 2012, while still living with him and their children, she began exchanging sexually explicit emails and telephone calls with Keith Reed who still wasn't aware that she was married. The online relationship came to an end when Anthony Taglianetti discovered one of the lurid email messages Mary had forgotten to erase from her computer.

A furious Anthony Taglianetti sent several angry emails to Keith Reed who insisted he had no idea the woman he had been swapping erotic emails with was married. Mr. Reed made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with Mr. Taglianetti or his dishonest wife.

On September 23, 2012, Edward Bailey, the principal of Clymer Central High School, reported Keith Reed missing after the superintendent didn't show up for a conference in Saratoga Springs. Mr. Bailey went to Reed's house where he found his dog locked in the garage. Mr. Reed was not in the dwelling.

Deputies with the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office questioned the missing man's neighbors who reported hearing gunshots coming from the vicinity of Reed's house around 9:30 PM two days before. On September 24, 2012, a deputy sheriff found Mr. Reed's body amid a row of thick shrubs about 150 feet from his house. He had been shot three times.

Detectives working the case caught their first break when Mary Taglianetti, on September 26, 2012, told them she suspected that Keith Reed had been murdered by her angry and jealous husband.

Investigators learned that on September 21, 2012, Anthony Taglianetti drove 350 miles to Clymer, New York where the detectives believed he shot and killed Keith Reed. According to these homicide investigators, Taglianetti, after murdering the victim, drove straight back to Woodbridge, Virginia. The next day he took one of his children to a local museum.

A Chautauqua County prosecutor charged Anthony Taglianetti with second-degree murder. On September 30, 2012, U.S. Marshals and local police officerrs pulled the murder suspect over as he drove along a rural road in the Shenandoah Valley National Forest in Virginia. Inside Taglianetti's vehicle officers found a .367-Magnum revolver wrapped in one of his wife's offending emails.

Through DNA analysis, a forensic scientist identified Keith Reed's blood on the suspect's handgun. Ballistics tests revealed that this .357-Magnum had fired the death scene bullets.

The Taglianetti murder trial got underway on October 31, 2013 in Chautauqua County, New York. District Attorney David W. Foley, in his opening statement to the jury, emphasized the physical evidence pointing to the defendant's guilt.

Public defender Nathaniel L. Barone, in his opening remarks, said, "This is not a story of an affair gone wrong or a crazed husband seeking justice. It's not as simple as Mr. Taglianetti driving up and killing Keith Reed because of an email. That's not what happened. The defendant is innocent. Mr. Taglianetti did not murder Keith Reed Jr."

The defense attorney, after declaring his client innocent, attacked Mary Taglianetti, one of the prosecution's star witnesses. He characterized her as a "master manipulator" and urged jurors to weigh her testimony carefully. "Mary Taglianetti is a liar," he said.

On November 9, 2013, following the testimony of 46 witnesses over a nine day period, the jury of five women and seven men, after three hours of deliberation, found the 45-year-old defendant guilty as charged. On February 24, 2014, the Chautauqua County judge sentenced Anthony Taglianetti to 25 years to life in prison.

17 comments:

Just saw the TV show. Two questions. 1) Why did Mary not tell Keith she was married and offered no explanation of this. 2) Why did Keith not report Taglianetti's threatening messages if not to the police, then to his brother, a law enforcement agent?? Thanks, Ross

Originally when they dated the first time he knew she was only separated from her husband. The 2nd time around she "said" they were on the rocks again or something. I think she is ridiculous though. Sorry. Either get divorced or focus on your spouse and family. Once you try to have it both ways it is never good.

Thanks! So does April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except for February, which sometimes has 28 and sometimes 29. Also, i before e, except after c, and when sounds like a, as in neighbor and weigh.

Lying is not against the law. People lie all the time on the internet, that is why it is important to be more diligent when internet dating, particularly on match.com every other description is filled with untruth.

Lovely to be deceived by a woman. This was just one online affair she was having. After the husband confronted her, she then wanted to stay married, he insisted on getting her passwords, finds all this other stuff, and flies off the handle. She wants to stay married (for the children), yet is worried about his hair-trigger temper. She can't make up her mind what she wants - meanwhile, a guy is dead.

I have been there too but with my husband. He had 3 of us going at once. Had no interest in divorcing me though. Didn't want people to hate him aka didn't want to be the bad guy. People need to be more respectful of each other. It's sad the lies people will tell just for self gratification.

I watched the show on ID and drew the conclusion that this man's wife did a really good job of setting him up, which is no crime, but she knows what she did and if she has a conscience, she should suffer knowing that she helped to destroy several lives. I think Mary has the opinion that she is the smartest person in the room and was able to convince the cops that her husband was the murderer. Had she not come forward, it may have been likely the case would have gone cold.

Also, Chris's former FBI agent brother is a bit of a legend in his own mind. Why is it that big doofuses think they own the world? He is obviously a jerk at best.

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LITERARY QUOTATIONS: GENRE is a compilation of informative and entertaining quotes by writers, editors, critics, journalists, and literary agents on the subject of literary genre. The quotes also touch on the subjects of craft, creativity, publishing, and the writing life.

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A graduate of Westminster College (Pennsylvania) and Vanderbilt University Law School, I am the author of twelve non-fiction books on crime, criminal investigation, forensic science, policing, and writing. I have been nominated twice for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award in the Best Fact Crime Category. As a former FBI agent, criminal investigator, author, and professor of criminal justice at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, I have been interviewed numerous times on television and radio and for the print media.
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